Welcome back to QCK!
Last week the community area and grills at Arlo’s apartment opened back up and we were really lucky to take a night off and have a really delicious grilled dinner. It ended up being one of the first “real” meals we’ve had in a couple weeks. By real I mean we hit all the food groups, had dessert, and even sat down at a table to eat. This is opposed to cramming a Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burger in our mouths while running out the door. It was so nice to have that time to just relax and breathe for a minute, and I needed it for my mental health more than I realized.
The entire meal consisted of Cajun Shrimp Grill Packs, this salad and was finished with Nectarine Cardamom Crumble Bars. This salad stole the show. Everything on this plate is grilled, so you get all these bright, fresh vegetable flavors in addtion to that delicious smokey, charred flavor. The entire salad is made up of zucchini, summer squash, eggplant. ausperagus, sweet corn, orange bell pepper, chery tomato and red onion, then mixed with grilled avocado and tossed with herb oil and crumbled feta. It’s a big, delicous medly of summer flavors.
This salad makes great leftovers. Want a filling, easy lunch the day after? Heat this up and throw it on some pasta!
Tips and Tricks
- This salad can be made one of two ways:
- You can put almost everything, with the exception of the ausperagus, tomato and bell pepper, directly on the grill, once everything is cooked, let it cool slightly, cut into bite sized pieces and toss. This method gives you the best grill flavor. I prefer this method.
- You can cut everything while it is still raw and place it in a tinfoil packet, then grill until fully cooked, cool slightly and toss with dressing. This method is slightly easier, but not as flavorful.
- Try to open the grill as little as possible, to retain heat.
Substitutions and Add Ons
- Summer squash, zucchini, and egg plant: If you’re having a hard time finding one or the other, just add extra of what you can find. For example, add extra zucchini in place of egg plant.
- Orange Bell Pepper can be swapped for any other color of bell pepper or for a poblano pepper.
- Cherry Tomato can be omitted if you don’t like tomato or swapped for Roma tomatoes.
- Red Onion can be omitted or swapped for yellow onion.
- Feta can be omitted or swapped for goat cheese, blue cheese or fresh mozzarella.
- You can also add; cilantro, thyme, red potatoes, jalapeño, grilled watermelon, grilled mango, or cook some pasta and make this into a pasta salad.
Recipe
| Prep: 30 Min | Cook: 30 Min | Difficulty: Medium | Servings: 5 |
Ingredients
- 2 Medium Summer Squash (yellow zucchini), cut into quarters, lengthwise
- 2 Medium Zucchini, cut into quarters, lengthwise
- 1 Small Eggplant, cut into quarters, lengthwise
- 1 Orange Bell Pepper, cut in half seeds removed
- 1 Small Red Onion, peeld and cut in half
- 2 Ears of Sweet Corn, still in husk
- 12-15 Ausperagus
- 1 C Cherry Tomatoes
- 1 Ripe Avocado, cut in half pit removed
- 1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
- 2 Cloves Garlic, minced, seperated into 3 parts.
- 1/4 Bunch Parsley, chopped
- 4 Large Basil Leaves, chopped
- 1 Tbsp Lemon Zest
- 1 Tsbp Lemon Juice
- 1/4 C + 2 Tbsp Olive Oil, devided
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1/2 C Feta Cheese Crumbles
Directions
- Heat grill to 425°F.
- In a large bowl, toss raw, cut squash, zucchini, eggplant, bell pepper, red onion, and avocado with 2 Tbsp of olive oil, 1 part of minced garlic, salt and pepper.
- Place ausperagus and cherry tomatoes in a tinfoil packet with a drizzle of olive oil, 1 part of garlic, salt and pepper. Cover.
- Once the grill is heated, place corn squash, zucchini, eggplant, bell pepper onion, avodcado and foil packet directly over flame.
- Leave for 10 minutes, or until prominent grill marks begin to form. Flip everything except the foil packet, remove the avocado at this stage and cut into small cubes.
- Leave for another ten minutes.
- In the meantime, make the dressing by combining the diced avocado, parsley, basil, remianing garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, 1/4 C of olive oil, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Mix until just combined.
- After 10 minutes, move all the vegetables to indirect heat, remove the sweet corn.
- Peel the corn and place it back on the grill over indrect flame.
- Continue to grill all the vegetables for another 10 minutes.
- Remove everything from the grill and let it cool slightly.
- Once slightly cooled, cut all the vegetables into bite sized pieces. Cut the corn off the cob, and leave the cherry tomato whole.
- In a large bowl, toss all diced vegetables with the dressing. Season to taste.
- Top with crumbled fet and enjoy warm.
As always, I hope you enjoyed this recipe! If you tried it out let me know in the comments. For more recipes check out my homepage and follow along on Instagram. Don’t forget to like, follow, comment and share. Thanks for reading!
Quarter Cup Kitchen 